Gaza Surf Club Is a Wave-Centric Window Into Life in the Gaza Strip

Gaza Surf Club, a new documentary by Philip Gnadt and Mickey Yamine premiering today on Sundance Now and set in the embattled sliver of territory known as the Gaza Strip, revels in its juxtapositions. There’s the violence of nature—the fierce Mediterranean Sea crashing against dilapidated concrete jetties, drowning beaches and breaching escarpments—and the violence of mankind, evident in the rickety, bombed-out buildings of seaside Gaza City, in the poverty of its inhabitants and in news dispatches that play over the film’s opening credits, reporting Israeli airstrikes and lapsed ceasefires. There’s the vastness of the ocean, Gaza’s western border, which stretches toward Europe and Africa, and the harsh reality of life under Israeli blockade, fenced in by tight borders and patrol boats that confine Gazan fishermen to a narrow, overfished lane of water. (A major theme: There are plenty of fish in the sea, but not if you live in Gaza.)

And then there’s the surf culture that a group of Gazans is attempting to import from abroad, a laid-back, mellow, wave-centric way of life that lies in stark contrast to the stress of existing inside a political pressure cooker—and, in certain ways, to the conservatism that’s sprung up in the era of Hamas, the Islamist political group that has controlled Gaza for the past decade.

Politics is not the point of Gaza Surf Club—it is, in fact, barely mentioned—but the political situation there informs every part of this project. Importing surf culture to Gaza actually represents a logistical nightmare. There are Vans hats, Sl8r shirts (as in Kelly Slater), and board shorts aplenty, but surfboards themselves are a scarce commodity. Minus the necessary foam and fiberglass and shaping equipment, Gazan early adopters tried to make do with hand-carved wooden substitutes, but the results proved fragile and dangerous (one surfer shows off the remnants of his wooden board, shattered and jagged). Later, when an American benefactor sent 24 modern alternatives via Israel, the supply was held up in customs for two years. “During the war I feared more for the boards than for my children,” jokes Abu Jayab, 42, an elder statesman of this small clan of surf enthusiasts and a sort of fisherman philosopher with a charming habit of speaking in riddles. You can make another child, he explains; you cannot make another board.

Ibrahim, an industrious 23-year-old with more than a passing resemblance to Mario Lopez, dreams of opening a clubhouse/surf shop, a place to market both the goods and the goodwill of surf culture, but he first wants to travel to Hawaii to learn more about the industry for which he’s evangelizing. That, too, is easier said than done; when we meet him, Ibrahim has already been rejected five times for a visa and has spent thousands of dollars in the process. He’s also stinging from another rejection: A Qatari woman he wanted to marry said no. When he reached out through Facebook to ask why, she admitted it’s because she would never want to live in a place like Gaza.

Ibrahim’s journey is the spine of the film. He eventually gets his visa and travels to Hawaii to meet his mentor and friend Matthew (sender of the 24 surfboards? Not totally clear). Ibrahim finds Aloha culture alluring and American culture alarming: “In the past 10 days I haven’t seen a single girl wearing all of her clothes.” He struggles with whether or not to return to his homeland; having glimpsed the turquoise waters, the glittering beaches, the glorious swell of the capital of surf, is he willing to go back to being a missionary in one of its dustiest, most provincial outposts? And even if he can figure out a way to get surfboards into Gaza, will people be willing to pay for them? How will they afford them? “As long as the situation in Gaza doesn’t change,” he concludes, “it will be difficult, no matter the price.”

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At one point Ibrahim appears on local television, where he’s interviewed by a female newscaster. “Are there any girls that are surfing in Gaza?” she asks. “Now? No, that’s difficult,” he explains bluntly. “But there were some little girls. Children, they learned a little about surfing. But now they don’t surf. Because they are women, not men.”

Take, for example, Sabah. When she was 12 she was the plucky face of Gazan surfer girls in a Guardian story and video. Three years later, the Gaza Surf Club cameras track her, head-scarfed and covered, as she watches the video of her freer, younger self. “When I’m older and become a doctor,” younger Sabah forecasts, “our community won’t allow us to surf because we’ll be adults and it’s considered shameful.” Older Sabah, watching with her family, giggles. She seems less sad than amused.

“Today everyone is controlling us, in the sea and everywhere else,” her father, a happy-go-lucky lifeguard who taught all his daughters to swim, later bemoans. Is he referring to the Hamas government or to the Israeli blockade? The details are vague, frustratingly so. He recalls a time when he brought his girls to surf in the harbor and was told by the coast guard to take them home. Later, for the cameras, he tries again: He ties a line to a surfboard off the back of his dinghy and motors Sabah out to sea. Far from shore she removes her long coat and head scarf, grins, and jumps in the water. She paddles out to the board, stands up, and surfs in the wake of her father’s boat as he picks up speed.

Nobody harasses them. When she reaches shore, scarf now clinging to her damp hair, a swarm of schoolgirls is waiting. They surround her, buzzing with excitement. How, they want to know, does one learn to do that?